Officials from several countries are vowing to quickly determine who's behind Thursday's downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the deaths of all 298 aboard.

U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the crash was caused by a surface-to-air missile near Ukraine's border with Russia, but have yet to determine where it originated. The incident already is inflaming tensions between the two countries and escalating political rhetoric elsewhere.

It was "not an accident, it was blown out of the sky," said Vice President Joe Biden.

Malaysia Airlines said Ukrainian air traffic control lost contact with Flight 17 about 30 miles from Russia. The plane carried 283 passengers, including three infants, and 15 crew members.

Crash victims and body parts were strewn among burning debris up to 10 miles away. Among the dead: 154 Dutch nationals, 27 Australians, 11 Indonesians, six Brits, four Germans, four Belgians, four French, three Filipinos and a Canadian.

Malaysian officials have so far not identified any Americans among the passengers, although they cautioned that some nationalities have still not been verified.

The crash site is in Ukraine's war-torn Donetsk region, where political unrest and and scattered fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russia militants has festered for months.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the crash "an act of terrorism" and demanded an international investigation.

Ukrainian officials said they had intercepted telephone calls of a separatist leader discussing the crash with Russian military intelligence officers. Separatists initially believed they had downed a military cargo plane, according to the SBU, Ukraine's main security agency.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the incident on the Ukraine government, which "carries responsibility for this horrible tragedy."

"We will do everything — everything that depends on us, in any case — to ensure that an objective picture of the events becomes accessible for our public and for the Ukrainian public and the entire world," he said.

The crash occurred two hours after the flight departed Amsterdam at about 12:15 p.m. local time. It is the second involving a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 this year. On March 8, Flight 370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and has yet to be found.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Ministry, said on Facebook that Flight 17 was hit by a Buk anti-aircraft missile. Usually vehicle-mounted, the Buk can simultaneously track and strike multiple targets at different directions and altitudes, according to military think tank Globalsecurity.org.

The Boeing 777 is considered one of the safest planes in the world by aviation analysts, and Thursday's crash of one in Ukraine seems unlikely to change that. Robert Mann, an aviation analyst and consultant with R.W. Mann & Co. in New York, said the plane's safety record "has been very strong."

USA TODAY

PREVIOUS INCIDENTS

As unthinkable as shooting down an airliner with hundreds of passengers is, it has happened before. Among the most notable cases in recent decades:

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Oct. 4, 2001:

An errant surface-to-air missile fire by the Ukrainian military during exercises in the Crimea causes the crash of an Air Siberia airliner en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk. All 78 people on board were killed.

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Oct. 20, 1998:

Rebels in eastern Congo shoot down a Congo Airlines passenger jet carrying 40 people. The plane crashes into a densely forested area just outside of Kindu, about 620 miles east of Kinshasa.

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Sept. 22, 1993:

Abkhazian rebels in Georgia shoot down a passenger plane, killing 80. A day earlier, 28 died when a Russian Tu-134 was hit by Abkhazian fire and crashed into the Black Sea.

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July 3, 1988:

The U.S. warship Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, mistaking it for a threatening warplane, during the war between Iraq and Iran. All 290 people aboard are killed. The United States pays more than $130 million in a 1996 settlement that includes compensation for families of the victims.

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April 10, 1988:

Afghan guerrillas shoot down a Soviet-built passenger jet, killing all 29 people aboard. Soviet television condemns the incident, especially after announcements that a negotiated end to the 10-year-old Afghan war is near.

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Sept. 1, 1983:

A Soviet fighter jet shoots down a Korean Air Lines passenger jet en route from New York to Seoul, purportedly mistaking the craft for a spy plane as it wandered into Soviet airspace west of Sakhalin Island. All 269 people aboard are killed.

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April 20, 1978:

An off-course South Korean jetliner carrying 110 people is attacked by a Soviet MiG fighter and is forced to crash-land on a frozen lake near Murmansk, killing two passengers.

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Feb. 21, 1973:

Libyan Airlines Flight 114 en route from Tripoli to Cairo goes off course, crossing the Suez Canal into airspace over the Israeli-held Sinai Desert. Israel claims the plane refuses to identify itself, and two Air Force Phantom jets fire at it to force it to land. The aircraft goes out of control and crashes, killing 108 people. There are five survivors.

Associated Press

AIRLINES TO AVOID AREA

Several of the world's biggest airlines — including Germany's Lufthansa, the Netherlands' KLM, Air France and Russia's Aeroflot — have said they're now avoiding airspace over tense areas near Ukraine's eastern border with Russia, in reaction to the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 317.

Additionally, the Federal Aviation Administration says U.S. carriers with flights over the region have voluntarily agreed to avoid the area. Delta said that even with its limited presence in the region, it would move to avoid Ukraine altogether.